What CC0 means
The images on Room Paintings are released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0), a public-domain dedication. The museum that photographed each painting has given up its copyright and related rights in the image, worldwide, as far as the law allows. You don’t need anyone’s permission, and you don’t owe a fee.
Who released the images
The images were published by the museums that hold the paintings, through their open-access programs: the National Gallery of Art in Washington (our largest source), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art and, in a smaller set, the Art Institute of Chicago. Room Paintings did not make the images and claims no rights in them. We show each one from the museum’s own servers, with a link to the museum’s record of the work; the small preview images are our own copies of the museum’s files.
What you may do with them
- Print them at any size, at home or at a print shop.
- Frame and hang them in your home, a rental, an office or a client’s project.
- Use them commercially: sell prints, put them on products, use them in designs and advertising.
- Crop them, recolor them, or change them in any other way.
What we ask, though it isn’t required
Credit the museum when you can, for example: Vincent van Gogh, Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. CC0 doesn’t require it, but museums appreciate it and it helps the next person find the original. Please don’t suggest that a museum, or Room Paintings, endorses your product.
Names, titles and dates
Artists’ names, titles, dates, materials and sizes are given as the museum gives them, including words such as “ca.” and second titles in parentheses. Every painting page links to the museum’s record, which is the authority if anything here differs. We use the museums’ facts about each work, not their written commentary.
A few limits
- We include only works the museum itself marks as public domain. The paintings are old enough that their own copyright has expired, and the museums have waived their rights in the photographs.
- CC0 covers the images, not the museums’ names or logos, which remain theirs.